Occam’s Razor Makes The Cutting Clean

Mortality’s a bitch. No sooner have I rounded the corner into my thirties than I begin to feel “my age.” My left knee gets all achy when it rains, and lately I’ve made an involuntary habit of waking up in the middle of the goddamn night in a fit of cold nausea and irritation. Acid reflux is a grimy whore. Hard to feel invincible when it seems like you’re gonna die.

On the upside, there’s some new music headed our way. Gnarls Barkley knocked the world on its ass a couple years ago with St. Elsewhere, but in truth I didn’t think they had much staying power. Nothing says “novelty act” like a band that has different themed costumes for every show, but evidently the boys are still going strong. “Run” is the first single off the new album, The Odd Couple. No release date yet, but it’s a hot track. Anyway, you can download that shit right here:

In lesser news, here’s a new song from N.E.R.D. Some people dig it. Me, well…I used to be a N.E.R.D. fan. Fly Or Die was the shit, but that was four long years ago. I had been looking forward to something new with a beat you can shimmy shimmy to, but I wanted to smash my stereo five seconds into this little nugget. The hook is fucking retarded. Make your own decision:

So, with that aside, I feel a responsibility to cleanse the musical palette. I figure a dose of pure rock fury is in order, and who better to deliver the succulent elixir than Clutch?“King Of Arizona” was released last year on Bam Margera’sViva La Bands, Volume 2, but I just found out about it a couple days ago. And if it slipped past my radar, there’s a good chance you missed it too. I see no reason why a fuckin rockin song should die an anonymous mixtape death, so here you go:

Side note for Clutch fans: Neil Fallon is rockin the mic for a new project, The Company Band. James Rota, Dave Bone and Jason Diamond are in it too. They’ve got an EP on iTunes already, called Sign Here, Here And Here, and a full-length album (The Vacation of Tomorrow, Today!) should be out later this month. If you’re broke, too lazy to find a torrent or too goddamned cheap to shell out tree-fitty for four awesome songs, you can catch their live debut on MTV February 9, during Jackass’s 24-hour takeover thing. I won’t upload them here; some things are worth finding on your own.

Johnny Firecloud's been kickin' names and takin' ass since his first interview in 2001 with A Perfect Circle, 6 years before starting AQ with Kevin Cogill. He also spent ten years as music editor/senior writer at CraveOnline.